Thread: Ballot selfies would be a ‘nightmare’: lawyer

Ballot selfies would be a ‘nightmare’: lawyer

November 1, 2016 | 3:25pm



Allowing people to snap selfies inside the voting booth would create a “nightmare” of delays and confusion on Election Day, a lawyer for the state Board of Elections insisted Tuesday.

The arguments were made at a hearing in Manhattan federal court in response to a lawsuit filed last week over voters’ First Amendment right to take photos of their completed ballots.

Lawyer John Schwartz said a state law put in place 126 years ago prohibits voters from showing others their marked ballots and that changing it now wouldn’t be in the public’s best interest.

“To make a change the week before a presidential election is going to cause havoc,” said Schwartz, adding that 35,000 poll workers would have to be retrained.

He also said ballot selfies would likely clog up the lines at polling places, potentially dissuading other voters from casting their ballot.

“The long lines expected in this year’s election… it’s going to be a complicated ballot. It’s going to take voters a long time to vote,” Schwartz said.

“Plaintiffs could’ve brought this case whenever,” Kitzinger told the judge.

Leo Glickman, who represents the trio of plaintiffs, asked Judge P. Kevin Castel to issue a court order blocking the Board of Elections and other officials from enforcing the state statue, saying it would have no effect on Election Day operations.

“What the Board of Elections is doing is shutting down free speech outside the polling site with this restriction,” Glickman argued.

Schwartz and Stephen Kitzinger, a lawyer for the city, underscored the filing of the lawsuit less than two weeks before Election Day next Tuesday.

At one point, he also noted the iPhone came out in 2007 and that “selfies have been a thing, in my opinion, for far too long,” drawing laughter from the audience and the judge.

Castel said he would rule by the end of the week.
Outside the courtroom, plaintiff Jennifer Rebecca White, of Bay Ridge, Brooklyn, said the issue wasn’t just about snapping a photo of herself in the booth.
“My concern is being able to document my ballot,” she said in the event of an irregularity or problem.

Eve Silberberg, who is also suing, shut down the notion that pictures would cause delays.

“People are more familiar with their cameras than the voting process,” said Silberberg, who lives in the West Village. “Photographing ballots won’t hamper the process as much as the process itself.”

http://nypost.com/2016/11/01/ballot-...htmare-lawyer/

I agree completely. People have got to stop treating the polling places like it was some kind of carnival. Go in. Vote. Get out. Selfies also undermine the very important issue of privacy in the polling area. Nobody should have to worry that they might have somebody watching them vote. No cameras, no exceptions.

Yet another good reason to get rid of the public polls and go over completely to Vote By Mail.